Well, summer is almost over, and i have been considering not only what to grow next season, but also how to store it. That’s maybe looking a bit far ahead, but i figured if i can’t store any particular crop, it’s going to affect how much of it i should grow.
I was looking the other day at a passata maker, a nifty little tool that removes the skin and seeds from tomotoes and produces a nice pulp quickly and easily.
Given that i don’t like tomatoes, you’d think there wasn’t much point growing them, but it’s really only whole tomatoes i don’t like, i think it must be the texture with the seeds in or something….ok, so i’m strange! Once processed, there are a whole raft of things i can make from the resulting gloop…..but i thought at £30 it was a bit steep, so it might have to wait. But then, i struck lucky. As i took a second look at a large quiche dish on a local car boot stall, i noticed something familiar next to it. A quick conversation with the stall holder, and hey presto, a brand new passata maker in a slightly tatty box for the princely sum of £2.50. Wuhoo!
So, now to research the best tomatoes for that job…..as well as for the ready made family i seem to have acquired by dating a single mother. They, at least, seem to appreciate the delights of whole tomatoes, so i’m looking at the varieties in more detail.
Scouring the internet and some secondhand cookery books for recipes has thrown up some new uses for a whole host of crops that i’ve been experimenting with on a small scale. So now next years planting list seems to be growing.
I’ve also been doing some preserving, making some chutneys from foraged/donated produce, and making some fantastic chilli jelly from a recipe found at the chilliking website. Yummy!
Meanwhile, in the allotment, the strawberry patch, transferred a couple of months ago from large pots in the back garden, is still yielding a few fruit each week. The swede and leeks are really growing well, and might be my first substantial crop from the plot. Beetroot are going well, but i’m not sure they will make it before winter strikes….and i’ve given up on the really lethargic sweet potatoes, they look about the same as when i put them in the ground…..
I’ve given up on the secondhand shed, it is just too rotten at the bottom, so plans are afoot to reduce it in height and convert it to a chicken coop. A new shed is now being sought. And the further i research, the more seems to be needed. Next on the list of things to find room for is a comfrey patch.
Crowle Allotments on a lovely late September morning. Mine plot is the rather forlorn empty patch! Work in progress!
